This article is about a Supreme Court case which ruled that cominations of previous patents shall no longer be allowed to be registered as new patents. The obvious reason for this is that it could cause people to profit off of the simple prevention of innovation. For instance, if I were to register an invention which combined the functions of a car, airplane and boat I may be unwittingly discouraging others who are developing such a technology already but who have not advanced far enough to begin applying for a patent. Certainly, t his example shows how a rather obvious idea can be essentially "stolen" as a patent and used for one individual's profit. technological examples might well be far more complicated. As technology progresses, such encounters could well become even more common. So, the Court essentially is loosening its interpretation of what is an "obvious" idea. Anyone who chooses to sue over copyright infr ingement is now taking on an enhanced risk that their copyright will be invalidated due to obviousness. So on the whole, it would appear that large companies have gained the power to combine existing patents without paying a toll to "trolls" who sneak in and patent these combinations in a fraudulent manner. One potential negative consequence could be that someone who combines patents in a novel manner which is not obvious may well have his patent invalidated for obviousness. Overall, this makes copyright law far more objective. This does seem to be a sensible conclusion however, given the rapid pace of technology advances.